The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled 7-0 to protect the state’s hunting clubs from warrantless searches of their property.
The Institute for Justice observes that the decision protects the right “to be secure on their land” of all Pennsylvanians “and marks a final victory with no further appeal available.”
The decision is a big deal. For decades, courts have accepted the “open fields doctrine” advanced in a 1924 U.S. Supreme Court decision. According to this rule — or rationalization — officials may conduct warrantless searches on any land beyond that which immediately surrounds a home. Even if the open-field land is clearly marked as private property.
This, despite the fact that the Fourth Amendment prohibits warrantless searches and the issuing of warrants without probable cause.
Other courts have routinely followed the 1924 precedent. The result, says IJ, has been that “about 96% of all private land in the country, and over 90% of all private land in Pennsylvania, was previously exposed to warrantless searches and surveillance.”
The present case arose because officials of the Pennsylvania Game Commission conducted frequent fishing expeditions on the lands of IJ’s clients, the Punxsutawney and Pitch Pine hunting clubs.
Like the Institute, the president of the Punxsutawney Hunting Club, Frank Stockdale, is confident that the ruling “is a victory for all landowners in Pennsylvania.”
This same logic should be pushed throughout the union, curbing government and providing owners the same common-sense protections in every state.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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2 replies on “Open Fields Closed”
The Open Fields Doctrine was established by a unanimous decision of the US Supreme Court in Hester v. the United States. I doubt that the present US Supreme Court would overturn that Doctrine.
If a protection against warrantless searches of land and of buildings other than houses is to be found in the Bill of Rights, that protection is in the Ninth Amendment.
The Fourth Amendment specifically reads “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” The word “effects” then and now does not include real estate. So, as much as some of us — I certainly included — would want a warrant required for a search of land, the Fourth Amendment offers no protection against even recognizably unreasonable searches of land nor even of structures such as barns, factories, and office buildings (though papers and effects within these structures are not subject to warrantless search or seizure).
So, the Court would be overturning a precedent unanimously established, based upon a theory not positively affirmed by the Constitution.
Super. If a Flock camera takes a video that includes private property, that would also be warrantless surveillance.